1. Field
The present invention relates generally to software development and, more specifically, to abstracting data access in a mobile environment.
2. Description of the Background Art
In order to abstract data access to remote systems on mobile devices, objects are commonly designed in order to present data from various sources, such as relational databases, in an object oriented manner. This also commonly allows for storage of objects in a relational database on the device through object relational mapping. Furthermore, synchronization is often done between the local database and enterprise database. Finally, application developers can reuse these objects in various applications.
This method suffers from the drawback of having to rewrite and redesign the objects when critical system components are changed. Often, several versions of the objects are then required, leading to compatibility issues. An additional drawback is the need for a developer to understand the complexities of relational synchronization technology. While object relational mapping hides most of the mapping details for objects, there is no such help for mobilizing enterprise data as objects for use in a mobile application in a transparent and efficient manner. Finally, with the many types of data sources e.g. Web Services, Enterprise applications, etc., the task becomes even more daunting.
Accordingly, what is desired is a flexible data abstraction methodology.